


Things In Motion

by BiggHoggDogg



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dragon Age: Inquisition Quest - Demands of the Qun, Fade Rifts, Gen, Qunari, Venatori
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 10:20:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17364173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BiggHoggDogg/pseuds/BiggHoggDogg
Summary: Penitence Adaar, Herald of Andraste, is faced with an impossible decision & chooses to respond impossibly. This fic begins at the conclusion of the "Demands of the Qun" quest in DA:I.





	Things In Motion

It was an odd time for everything to be so quiet. An angry ocean battered the cliff face a hundred feet below where Penitence Adaar stood, watching the steady, cautious advance of a full company of Venatori towards The Chargers. Upon that angry ocean floated a Qunari dreadnought, terrible and vulnerable, timbers creaking, its crew bustling to and fro. Some feet away, Gatt and Iron Bull were shouting – Gatt firm and mollifying, Bull furious and pleading – and yet the argument hardly buzzed in Penitence's ears. She kept staring, half-frowning, lips moving slightly, paying no mind to the crashing of the waves, the creaking of the dreadnought, the crunch of Venatori boots on the rocky beach, or the shouting of the Ben-Hassrath agents. She brought a hand up to one of her horns, absentmindedly flicking some rainwater off it, toying with the tip, frowning.

“Herald...?” Dorian's quiet voice interrupted her reverie, causing her to start slightly, turning to face the Tevinter mage. “Herald, I think they need a tiebreaker” he murmured, gesturing towards Bull and Gatt.

Penitence nodded, slowly. “Right.” She took a deep, steadying breath. “Right. How many lyrium potions do you have left, Dorian?”

Dorian raised a single (expertly sculpted) eyebrow. “Four, Herald. Why?”

Penitence didn't answer him, gaze now fixed on Bull and Gatt. “Here,” she said, handing him three small, blue bottles. “Find a flask or a tankard or something and pour these in along with yours. Then bring it to me. Cole!”

And then Cole was at her side, rainwater dripping from the wide brim of his hat. Penitance smiled; it had been a long time since that particular trick had startled her. “Cole, touch my mind. Will it work?”

There was a pause as Cole considered. Then, in his strange, gentle voice: “The getting there won't be the problem. It's the staying you should be worried about.”

The Herald grimaced. “I am. Say I get stuck. Will you be able to...?”

Cole favored her with a small, wan smile. “I don't know. It's... different than before. But I promise to try.”

This made her grin and clap him on the arm (making him stagger slightly.) “I'll take it. Bull!”

The massive spy turned, distress written all over his haggard features. “Boss, you can't- they're my- we've gotta...” He trailed off, wringing his hands.

Penitence smiled, gently. “I know, Bull. Don't worry. The Chargers aren't done today.” Bull looked up, relief and guilt competing for real estate on his face. “But we aren't sounding the retreat.”

Gatt piped up. “Optimism is fine, but that company is over a mile from our position. We'd never get there before they engage the Chargers.”

Ignoring him, Penitence took the confused Bull by the shoulder and pointed at a mangonel the Venatori had set up in the encampment. “I need a little muscle, Bull. Trust me on this and don't talk back. Get that thing facing towards your crew and I promise you all get to walk home alive. Okay?” Bull's mouth started forming a question, but a look from Penitence made him clamp it shut again. After a moment, he nodded and jogged over to the siege engine.

Gatt tried again. “Even at this height, that thing won't carry a rock halfway there. If you're trying to get their attention-”

“It's not their attention I'm after.” Penitence didn't bother facing the Ben-Hassrath agent, instead watching as Iron Bull heaved the mangonel into position. “As I recall, the point of this operation was to wipe every last cultist off this miserable beach with not a scratch on your precious dreadnought. Am I right?”

Gatt attempted his best ingratiating smile. “Of course, yes, of course. And, ah, it's understandable that the Inquisition would balk at any loss of face at this-”

“The Inquisition doesn't lose face, Gatt.” The Herald turned to Gatt. Her smile contained no warmth whatsoever. “The Inquisition doesn't lose. Period.” She shrugged off her robes, revealing a pair of scar-crossed, well-muscled arms. “Pavus! I'm thirsty!”

The Tevinter mage bustled over, bearing a tankard brimming with blue liquid. “PLEASE tell me you aren't contemplating what I THINK you're contemplating.” His expression was half detached amusement, half horror.

Penitence Adaar took the tankard in one hand, seizing her staff in the other. “Bull!” She raised the tankard in a toast. “If that mangonel isn't facing due north by the time I drain this, I'm cutting off one of those pretty horns and carving it into a duck!” The Ben-Hassrath operative answered this with a pained grunt. Grinning madly, the Herald tipped the tankard back, her throat working steadily. It was not a small tankard, and it was the work of nearly half a minute before she had drained the vessel with a gusty wheeze. To his credit, Bull had completed his work several seconds prior, now wheezing against one of the siege engine's wheels.

Penitence wasted no time, striding over to the re-positioned mangonel. “Bull, if I manage this...” She paused, seeming to struggle with her words. “Listen. When I land- if you see me land, blow that horn and get the Chargers charging, alright? And show a little hustle yourself, I'm going to need all the help I can get.” Bull's enormous brow crinkled in confusion, but she ignored him, climbing into the mangonel's basket, sitting astride a massive boulder. “Cole! Whenever you're ready!”

To her surprise, Cole threw his arms around her in a thin, desperate hug. “I wish I could help with this. It's the sort of thing I SHOULD help with. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

Penitence's mouth curled into a helpless smile, despite the lyrium already roiling in her stomach. “Oh, Cole... I know. I KNOW. Trust me, if I thought I could handle it, you'd be sitting here right next to me. But this is crazy enough with just ONE person trying it, you know?” She pressed her forehead against his. “Tell you what: next time I try something this stupid, I PROMISE you can come along.”

Cole's mouth quirked into something that might have, in the right light, been a grin. “I'd like that.” And then he pulled the mangonel's lever, sending Penitence and her rocky seat hurtling into the air.

The four men watched the Herald fly away from them. Bull looked at Cole, still breathing heavily. “Kid, you seem to know something the rest of us don't. Care to explain why the last hope of Thedas just poured a lethal dose of lyrium down her gullet and then threw herself from a catapult?”

Cole simply pointed out at the Herald, saying: “She's going to break a rule.”

They watched. They watched as Penitence, still riding the boulder, reached the top of her arc, beginning her descent down to the rocky shore. They watched as she fell towards to that shore, towards certain death. They watched as, just before she should have been dashed upon the stones, neon-green bolts of energy rent the very fabric of space and time, creating a tear into which Penitence and her seat vanished.

* * *

It was, as ever, strange within the Fade. Penitence had been counting on this, however, as obeying the NORMAL rules of reality would have ended fifteen seconds ago with her crushed into a paste on a rainy beach. There was no wind against her face here in the tortured between-space that separated life and death, dream and waking, reality and unbeing. She had a sense of motion, of traveling rapidly, soaring through a cloudy void. Unslowing. Just as well. Now... all she had to do was TWIST, and...

* * *

Cole was still pointing. “It's about moving. Things moving like to KEEP moving, unless something else says they shouldn't. Right? But in the Fade... you don't HAVE to move like that. She knew. She figured it out! She figured it out!” Cole was hopping from one foot to the other as green electricity crackled along the beach, another rift forming, sending the Herald (and her boulder) rocketing back into the sky as if thrown by the hand of the Maker himself.

“You don't have to slow down in the Fade, you see?” Cole was practically jumping up and down. “And when you come back out, why come out the same way you came? She figured it out!!” Gatt's jaw was hanging open. Dorian was laughing hysterically. Bull was watching the Herald's path with awe, tears shimmering in his eyes.

* * *

Separated from her companions, Penitence was having some definite second thoughts about her strategy. Yes, navigating the Fade and its peculiar approach to momentum and gravity had gone well, giving her added boost she needed to reach the Venatori before they could storm the Chargers' position. But now she was riding a half-ton boulder as it sailed through the air, faced with the very real problem of what to do when the ground made it second appearance of her flight. She didn't have another rift in her, that was for certain.

The lyrium twisting and turning in her guts gave her her answer.

Penitence and her boulder again reached the top of their arc, hanging for a moment in perfect weightlessness. And then, gravity beckoned, as it so often does. Below her, through the wind and rain, Penitence saw the Venatori ranks in their slow advance towards the Chargers. Few, if any, of them seemed to have made note of the bizarre scene playing out behind them. Closing her eyes and controlling her breathing, she started to summon a vision of fire in her mind.

She opened her eyes. She saw fire. A pillar of fire, cascading from her outstretched palm. Fire in quantities she had never seen conjured before, not by any mage, not by any FIVE mages. It was as if the Maker's own furnace was in her palm, a stream of irresistible heat pouring downwards. She marveled as she lifted off from her rocky seat, the boulder turning red-hot, a roaring meteor cast from the fist of an angry god.

It was intoxicating (though maybe that was the likely-lethal dose of lyrium. She was past caring.) Fire spilled from her fist, slowing her descent, sending the boulder beneath her streaking groundwards filled with incandescent fury. If the Venatori hadn't seen her before...

Her landing was loud, hot, and very loud.

Slowly, Penitence stood up. Again, the world seemed very quiet, against all odds. There should have been men shouting, scrambling to regain their footing. There should have been the plink plink of cooling shards of stone, the pitter patter hiss of rain in the crater she had created. Somewhere far off there should have been Iron Bull's blaring horn, signaling the Chargers to advance. But there was only a distant roaring, an insistent urge to pour arcane fury from every orifice.

So.

Casting her gaze about, she spied a trio of mages struggling to form a counterattack. That wouldn't do, would it? Casually, almost carelessly, she conjured an eruption of ice in their midst, spearing them with lightning as they soared into the air. Some archers on a ridge to the west seemed to be regaining their footing. A hail of heavy stones were their reward, tossed with but a flick of her wrist.

More approached her, swiftly, daggers out, confident that if they could just close the distance... a lone mage should be an easy kill. She surprised them, planting her staff in the sand, letting tongues of pure green fire snake around her arms, her legs, charring what remained of her clothes- and leaping like a spark, she was upon them. Her blows were irresistible, impossible. Her fists left trails in the air, cracking like whips, sending men soaring as if they were made of kindling.

All dead. She stumbles. Breathing heavy. Back to the staff, leaning on it for support.

Heavily-armored soldiers forming a fist of steel. Cautious now. Smarter. Still. Nothing to worry about, just-

Agh.

Aa.

Black. Swimming swimming aa no no no no no no stand up stand up stand up

Closer. Their mistake.

Rocks for one man, breaking his arm, his jaw, sending him sprawling. More to come.

Lightning takes another. Hah. Hah. Hh.

Lungs. Frozen. Try to- try to- can't

Standing above me. Sword goes up stop no

Vomit green fire in his face. Didn't see THAT coming ha ha aaaaa

Last one. Can't stop no something something come on come on

Cole.

Cole made it.

Cole's here. Cole cole Cole aaaaa help help help help help hlp he ha hl hp

* * *

There wasn't much of a fight left on the beach, truth be told. Krem had been bracing himself for the worst when the Venatori reserves started their advance, but Herald Adaar's arrival had changed all that. She had thrown the cultists into chaos with her arrival alone, and the fact that she had stood up and begun casting fire and lightning about with abandon afterwards... it was amazing that the Chargers had anything left to trample, honestly.

Krem spotted a knot of Vints advancing on- oh Maker, that was her, wasn't it? Krem broke into a sprint, shouldering past warriors, praying that his legs could get him there in time, in time to save- wait, who was-

Stepping out of thin air, a skinny young man casually drew a dagger across the neck of the soldier who had been about to slay the Herald of Andraste. Shoving the soldier to the side, he stooped, tugging at Lady Adaar's arm, pulling her towards the ocean.

Krem trotted up to the pair. “Smooth work, lad. Let me give you a hand getting her back to our camp, Dalish can-”

“No!!” The urgency in the young man's voice brought Krem up short. “No. She's got to keep casting! There's a storm within her, all fury and fire, and it's going to cook her alive if she can't get it out! She needs a place to put the storm!!” He was pleading. He wasn't strong enough.

Almost without thinking, Krem seized the Herald's other arm and started pulling. “I'll take your word for it, friend.” Krem hadn't gotten this far in life by ignoring signs and portents, after all. “She'll be well if we get her to the sea?” The young man said nothing, water dripping from his broad-brimmed hat.

They hauled Penitence almost chest-deep into the water. Her head was lolling, her eyes glazed with a shimmering emerald sheen. The young man stepped behind her and did- something. Krem couldn't say quite what. His eyes seemed to have trouble focusing every time he tried to look at what the young man was doing, and he eventually gave up trying.

The results were immediate and, again, very loud. Penitence seemed to erupt, emitting a keening, formless screech. She spat fire and lighting. Her hands (held underwater with some difficulty by Krem and the young man) poured out raw eldritch energy until the seawater was near boiling. Krem found himself silently wishing he hadn't volunteered for this particular detail.

And then, as abruptly as it had begun, Penitence's eruption seemed to subside. She slumped, caught tenderly by the young man, who began whispering something soft and soothing into her ear. The two men hauled the limp Herald back to shore, where she was promptly dried and swaddled in blankets and fussed over by Dorian and Dalish.

Presently, reluctantly, she regained consciousness. She spent a brief moment speaking with Cole, kissing his hand and holding it against her cheek, before sending him to collect the anxious Iron Bull.

“Boss, that was... that... you...” Bull was still shaking. He took a deep breath, collecting himself. “Gatt says there's no question – you'll be declared basalit-an for sure. No doubt in his mind.” He smiled nervously. “That's good.”

Penitence gave a wan smile. “That's wonderful, Bull. Really wonderful. Hey, could you come closer for a second?” She made a weak beckoning motion with one finger.

When Bull stooped to comply, he suddenly found one of his horns grasped in a fist of granite, pulling him off-balance. Penitence hissed in his ear: “You saw what I did today. I split the very firmament to keep your family whole. To keep YOU whole. No, do not move, and do NOT speak.” Bull froze, sweating. “I drank poison to keep the blood in their veins. To keep YOU from making the decision every commander MUST make.” Bull heard a hissing noise and realized his horn was smoldering inside the Herald's fist. “Remember this. Remember the path I kicked through the sky, the bodies I left in my wake. Remember them the next time you call me Tal-Vashoth like I was a pile of something a dog coughed up.”

She released him, sending him stumbling back.

“Who am I, Bull?” Penitence asked this staring mildly into the middle distance.

Iron Bull swallowed. “You're... you're the boss, Boss.”

Penitence Adaar smiled. “Right.”

“Right.”

**Author's Note:**

> Fun Fact: I wrote this fic before I had gotten to "Here Lies the Abyss", so I thought I was being very inventive & clever for having Penitence OPEN a rift instead of CLOSING one. Ah well.


End file.
